If someone, halfway through this film, has the intrusive thought that if, instead of Eddington, the town that appears was called Springfield and, instead of a film, this was an episode ofThe Simpsons All of this would be funnier, there would be little to argue with. Because as a black comedy about the behavior of ordinary American citizens in specific situations, Eddington fair. And be careful, because that would still be a benevolent analogy. If instead of the perspective of satire, one wants to evaluate Ari Aster's new film as an allegory of the United States based on the events that take place in the microcosm of a small town, as John Sayles, for example, has done repeatedly (Lone Star, The Promised Land, Silver City…), then the comparison would be bloody.

One of the major issues facing today's world is how the ideological polarization of politics is increasingly spilling over into everyday life and endangering coexistence, especially in a heavily armed society like the United States. Ari Aster points in this direction in Eddington, the debut in the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival of the director of Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019), who after being acclaimed as a master of modern horror in his first films seems determined to expand his scope. He already did so in the dislocated existential comedy Beau is scared (2023) and repeats the play in Eddington imprinting an overtly satirical and misanthropic tone on the story, which follows a rather bungling sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) with a dysfunctional marriage as he clashes with his town's mayor during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.